Dragon Aster Trilogy (5 page)

“You ever get the feeling we’re sailing to our deaths?” Hain hiccuped as he looked across the dark blue ocean to the Torian Continent. It loomed like an ill-omened shadow in the horizon’s fog.

Kas couldn’t help but the fear that the old phelan somnus might be right. With the scars on his dark-tanned face, arms and chest, Hain was the perfect painting of many near-death encounters. “I have not foreseen such.”

“Oh? Just what have you foreseen then?”

Kas looked up to where the Thread sails raised to the coming Aur storm of the morning from the Torian Continent, as the estus energy of the waves under them cracked and sparked to its counterpart above. When the energy struck the ship, it was quickly channeled to the masts from the metal on the sides and just under the deck of the GLORIA. Then the energy was released by the pluma Thread of the stringy sail that floated safely behind them. If the ship had been going faster, it might have left a colorful rainbow to drift in the air for a while.

The Thread was weaved as a dense version of pluma silk, which was the best conductor for estus and aeri energy alike, and what kept the energy from choosing to go through them instead. When the Aur storm was over ten minutes later, the Thread dropped to the sides of the masts to cool. Then it was twisted back away by the contraption made to do just that. The white cloth sails were then lifted once again to fill with the fresh, crisp air that would drift them to their destinies. Where death may or may not be laying in wait for their last breath.

“No, I mean seriously, why didn’t we take a Sano with us if this mission is so important?”

“Do you doubt in my abilities?”

“A phelan is best suited to serve as fitted to one of their talents. You can sing, you can heal and you can wield and command blades in battle.”

“Is that Jru’s training I hear from you? Just how much did you drink before that bottle?” Kas asked as he wasn’t entirely sure the phelan was drunk anymore.

He got a groan back.

“I already know what I am best suited for as an adult. Your concern is noted.”

“Oh? Then what is it?”

“The exact opposite talents of my Aliyr.”

“Huh?” Hain asked confused, as he pulled himself back up straight to see the silver markings on the High Priest’s left arm. “Who’s that? You didn’t tell me you got Bonded—didn’t you just turn eighteen?”

“It is what they call Fate, Hain, and no, I have not married her. You should learn to read better,” Kas said as he covered the glyph on his arm with his white sleeve before the phelan somnus could try to do just that. He went over to pick up one of the black uniforms that had been stripped from one of the lesser fortunate on their voyage, and looked it over. It didn’t have a drop of blood on it. “Were they a living offering?”

“You tell me first.”

Kas let out a sigh as he had raised Hain’s defensive wall again. “Yes, she is alive, and no, I did not have anything to do with its making.”

“Bonded by Fate eh? This I really gotta see the other side to. Because if you have taken up lying, I’m throwing in the towel to the caels. As for the best of the best crew; did you seriously think I would offend the sea caelestis by throwing her anything that could get stuck in her teeth? You’re supposed to be an expert on relations between mortals and the caels as a...” Hain paused for a moment with a loud yawn. Then he stretched his hands before him, complete with a pair of new black gauntlets. A deviant smile stretched across his face in turn to match the story of how he had taken them.
“Priest.”

The voice drifted away from her mind, leaving Sybl in the deafening silence of the world around her. She wanted it to stay, to continue to tell her that she wasn’t alone and that there was someone out there thinking about her, who cared what her future had in store, but there was no way to keep it.

It was the sad thing that came with dreams, you could never keep them.

She opened her blue eyes on the grass of the woods she lay on at the back of her foster home. On looking up, she found it was snowing. It was unusual in the least, as it was the middle of August. Laughing, she caught one of the cold snowflakes in hand. It was not melting.

“Wishes do not melt away.
”

Sybl sat up and looked around for the voice, while trying to untangle with her fingers her wavy, light brown hair. It was now a long series of knots leading to her waist. She wasn’t awake, as the dream had changed. The trees had vanished to leave her sitting in the middle of a field of pink flowers. “Hello?”

“Hello.
”

She jumped to her feet when the voice came back to her head like an echo carrying an eerie chill. A familiar chill.

“You can make more wishes, but you cannot alter the ones made in your past.
”

“What...? Where are you?” Sybl stumbled as she found the strange kid who looked to be the source of the voice, behind her. He wore a black mask with white, wavy stripes painted across and a cloak made entirely of brown feathers. Her first guess was that he might be a tribal child from the Amazon.

“You must remember me.
”

“Why don’t you just show me the way out of this dream?”

“I can show you the way out. If you promise to remember me.
”

Sybl looked a little closer at the inhuman green eyes behind the mask. She didn’t know where to start in trying to know what he was—let alone who.

He moved a step closer as the rattles that hung at the sides of his mask shook in turn. His walk was even wrong…almost as if his legs were bent the other way.

If he was a demon, she knew better than to start with making a pact with it. “I only know the names of humans, and you’re not one. I won’t promise you anything.” Sybl looked around the field as it had started snowing again, only it was from the pollen of the flowers floating upwards.

She turned and started walking across the field towards what looked like a canyon up ahead. For an impossible dream, maybe falling was the way out. Sybl stopped before it as the pollen continued to rise around her and looked down. At a death-plunge below, a glowing river cut through the canyon, before emptying some ways out to what might be an ocean. She looked up to try and find some sunshine or anything that might give her some sense to where she was. A dome of pinkish-yellow light looked back down on her. There wasn’t a cloud anywhere, only a beam of bright white light that touched the atmosphere in the opposite direction from the ocean.

“If you do not help me, I will not allow you to leave.
”

She took the threat seriously as his feathery cloak could have only rustled so much from being taken off. But when she looked back, it wasn’t a cloak at all—but a span of wings.

Whether it was shock or the impossibility of him that drove her off the edge after that, she would not remember. A swarm of feathers appeared from the caves burrowed into the sides of the canyon. Then the swarm collided with her.

When the sailors from the GLORIA landed, one of their newer crew members made the mistake of following their curiosity to examine the swirling sands on the beach. Cirrus came out of his trance and eyed the young phelan somnus, dropping the wind and sand of his camouflage as he did so.
 

He looked to be a young noble. There were no marks of the experience of hard labor or servitude on him. It was the only reason Cirrus didn’t strike the teenager down when he unsheathed his sword against him in what looked to be a genuine challenge. His Ancient was incapable of striking a somnus, unless they proved to be an immediate threat to his current size. It was one of the creation Laws of Aragmoth; as Ancients and Eminor had been returned to life on the new Aster to protect souls—not destroy them. Every soul, even those of their enemies, was what infused their larger forms with enough energy to exist outside of the spiritual. Despite the kid being old enough to have learned this, he still gave a genuine pose as a threat to him.

He might have found a new victim from the GLORIA to taunt yet.

Cirrus swiped at the kid, which sent the somnus falling backwards. His warning strike had missed his chest by inches. This was proving fun already, as the somnus was fast.

“Easy there kid, we don’t want to piss that one off.”

I was just starting to have fun too,
Cirrus thought to himself as the older phelan somnus lifted the teenager back onto his feet and led him away.

“Get a hold of your kid!” Quinn shouted.

“It’s fine—no harm done!”

Cirrus stood up and let his aeri unleash a rush of wind against the sand, covering them in it to further illustrate his lack of patience for phelan. They learned quick, as they didn’t so much as give a look back.
 

He was more interested in their Awl, anyway. He would kill it one day. Sadly, it wouldn’t be today, as Gloria walked over to him and paid him the respect of a curtsey. In her hand, she carried what was not the usual bottle of chardonnay she offered on her landings.

“Please accept this as thanks for allowing us to take what we need from your lands.”

“Am I to assume that the one with the chardonnay on his breath is responsible?”

Bit ways away now, the phelan somnus hiccuped with a combination of fear and drunkenness as he shoved off the overly brave kid away from the camp. Nobles were never shoved anywhere.

Gloria seemed to think on it a moment, before piecing together the truth for herself in her mind.

“It will do,” Cirrus said as he unsomned in a rush of white mist, and took the sling with the bottle from her. He didn’t drink, but the alcohol had a cooling effect on his father’s temper. It was an accidental discovery on the General’s part, when Dyaus had a bottle of chardonnay thrown at him, from Gloria.

Gloria blushed red and pondered him for a while, instead of returning to her crew. Her cheeks were almost dark enough to match her hair.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, sorry… I will leave you in peace now.”

Cirrus looked at the bottle and pondered whether she gave it to him as a peace offering, or simply to see his human-like form. As he looked over at the pluma consort watching them from behind his sad-carved mask, it became clear it was the latter. To remind the Awl of his place, he took his necklace off and waved it back and forth by his hand.

It angered Delare, though he was nearly flawless in hiding it without the need of a mask. Gold was richly woven with memory Thread and knowledge. Knowledge that all this Awl’s skills would never be able to reach or take from him. On Delare’s Continent, he was like a demigod to the populous. On the Torian, it was the dragons who dealt out absolute Fate. Delare took off his mask and let his green eyes glare at Cirrus for a while.

When Cirrus got bored of him, he somned back into his dragon form to mind other things.

“I blame my current discomfort on you asking that Awl to take off his mask.”

“Do you ever stop complaining?” Hain asked Kas as he followed in step a few meters from the Priest’s side. “You don’t honestly believe the superstition that one removing their mask leads to the sight of the afterlife, I hope? That is nothing but a fairy tale for cubs. And speaking of cubs—what were you thinking challenging the White Death like that?”

“And you are not one of these fairy tales?” Kas said, changing the subject back to Hain.

“It’s a miracle that brute didn’t remember me, or we be pulp right now.”

“Fortunately you were able to get his memory Threads under control while I distracted him.”

“Let me guess, my kid opened his mouth?”

Kas stopped abruptly. “Kenshe has told me a lot of things. But the most important question is why is his mother still on this Continent?”